At CloudExpo 2023, Prasanna Gopalakrishnan, Group CTO at Sky discussed how businesses can leverage technology to deliver purpose, connection and engagement.

Stay tuned to learn how to leverage your business to drive digital transformation, and why tech should be in the DNA of your business.

The 2023 business landscape is a challenging one. Accelerated by the pandemic, consumer behaviour and business models have changed forever. Businesses now operate in a transformed landscape, accelerating the digitisation of customer and supply chain interactions. To remain competitive in this new business and economic environment requires new strategies and practices. And, according to a McKinsey Global Survey of executives, these changes are expected to be here for the long run.

How has Sky taken this approach?

For many, technology has been at the backstage for many years, however Prasanna explained how now it’s finally at the forefront, leading business strategy. This is especially true for Sky, who are a fantastic case study for doing digitisation and digitalisation well.

Tech is at the heart of Sky, leading business decisions and allowing it to evolve and grow massively.

For years, Sky has been a leader in innovation.

• In 1989 Sky launched the UK’s first satellite TV service with four free to air channels.
• In 1991, Sky launched Sky Sports, including innovations such as the first on-screen clock & score line for live football.
• In 1998 Sky launched Sky Digital, offering the UK’s first digital TV service with over 140 channels.
• In 1999, Sky delivered the world’s first interactive football match via Sky Sports Xtra.
• In 2006, Sky became the world’s first carbon neutral media company.
• In 2016, Sky launched unlimited NOW Broadband, the UK’s first contract-free broadband service.

What do all these have in common? Sky has its consumers at the heart of everything they do, striving to make Sky the most convenient solution to its problems.

Throughout her talk, Prasanna urged businesses take its consumers seriously. Think about creating a powerful experience for your consumers, and the role tech can play.

“Creating compelling customer experiences means we have to not treat every interaction as a transaction, but rather solve the problem of the customer in mind,” explains Prasanna.

Changing expectations of customers demonstrate the importance of a business adopting a purpose driven approach. For Sky this goes beyond offering an excellent product to its customers. Sky is involved in purpose driven initiatives, including its sustainability and Net Zero goals, the Sky Up programme tackling digital exclusion, and partnering with the Black Equity Organisation to back Black British entrepreneurs with a £1 million Future 100 Growth Fund.

What else can companies do?

IT and consulting company Accenture has highlighted this need to adapt and adopt to have an effective digital transformation strategy. Whilst tempting for companies to stick to what they know, it’s important that they become ‘masters of change’.

In its 2021 report, ‘Leaders Wanted: Masters of Change at a Moment of Truth’, it outlines five key trends for leaders to embrace to build a better future.

These five key trends are:

• Consider tech architecture carefully as it matters more than ever. Business and technology strategies are becoming inseparable. Enterprises also have more technology choices to make, from the distribution of cloud deployments, types of AI models and wide ranges of edge devices.
• Power new possibilities through a digital-physical world. digital twins are proliferating across many industries and driving an irreversible inflection point. 97% of executives agree digital twins are becoming essential to their organisation’s ability to collaborate in strategic ecosystem partnerships.
• Democratise your IT. There is an undeniable shift toward democratised technology. Natural language processing, low-code platforms and robotic process automation are some of the capabilities and services making technology more accessible.
• Create a new culture of working. We all know that many companies and employees are moving to a future of flexible working. Accenture predicts that successful companies in the future will be ones who resisted the urged to race everyone back to the office.
• Multiply the impact of complex ecosystems. One of the biggest impacts of the pandemic was it revealed the weaknesses of global enterprises, leaving companies cut off from their partners, scrambling for answers and needing to build new, trustworthy relationships. This technology includes investing in blockchain, distributed databases and tokenisation.

Digital transformation presents opportunities for businesses to flourish, and creates safeguards in the face of changes taking place. In a world that’s that constantly evolving, one thing’s for sure. Having an effective digital transformation strategy in place will put you ahead of competition, and help to attract talent going forward.